Tough weekend for Love's picks

Stricker, Furyk, Snedeker fail to live up to expectations at Medinah

Steve Stricker went 0-4. Jim Furyk and Brandt Snedeker each finished 1-2. If not for a 3-0 performance from long-hitting Dustin Johnson, Davis Love III's captain's picks would've been total duds.

Getting second-guessed as Ryder Cup captain is as much a part of golf as birdies and the beverage cart. So there Love sat late Sunday, defending the choices that so deserted him during Team USA's epic collapse.

Stricker, Furyk and Snedeker all lost Sunday. Stricker and Furyk faded badly with late collapses and Snedeker, hot off his victory at the Tour Championship, fell to unheralded Paul Lawrie early.

Furyk coughed up a 1 up lead after 16 to Sergio Garcia with back-to-back bogeys.

"It's been a low year," Furyk said. "I've played very well this year but haven't closed the door. I'm pretty sure Sergio will tell you I outplayed him, but I lost. It's my lowest point of the year."

Stricker bogeyed the par-3 17th when he hit a thin chip and then rimmed out his par putt to give Martin Kaymer a gift heading into the closing hole.

"I've been down in some depths before and you've just got to pick yourself up and play golf again," Stricker said.

National pride: Twenty-one years after Bernhard Langer missed the decisive putt to allow the U.S. to win at Kiawah Island (S.C.), fellow German Martin Kaymer drilled home the Cup-clinching putt from relatively the same distance on No. 18.

"On Friday, I sat down with Bernhard and talked to him about the Ryder Cup because my attitude wasn't the right one," Kaymer said. "Bernhard helped me so much."

Kaymer's 6-foot comebacker after sending his birdie putt well past the cup defeated Steve Stricker and buoyed the 2010 PGA champion, whose game has slumped since he ascended to the top of world rankings with that major victory.

"The major win was just for myself," Kaymer said. "This is so much more."

Taming Tiger: Rare is the moment when Tiger Woods is rendered inconsequential.

But for the second time in his Ryder Cup career, Woods found himself playing a hole after the competition had been decided. Kaymer's clinching putt in the next-to-last match forced Woods and Franceso Molinari to play a meaningless 18th hole, which Woods bogeyed to give back the lead he acquired on 17 and halve the match.

What had never happened before was Woods securing just a half-point for the U.S. His previous low came during his 1997 debut, when he went 1-3-1 at Valderrama in Spain. Woods, who also sat a session for the first time Saturday morning, is now 13-17-3 overall.

Clean slate:Ian Poulter ran his career Ryder Cup mark to 12-3 by winning all four of his matches, including Sunday's 2-up victory over Webb Simpson in the day's second match. Poulter trailed by two holes early but won the final two holes.

"I didn't have my best early on, but I managed to stick in," Poulter said.

Tap-ins:Phil Mickelson, who lost a late lead when Justin Rose birdied the final two holes, passed Billy Casper for most matches played by an American with 38. ... Europe matched the largest final-day comeback in Ryder Cup history, set in 1999 at Brookline (Mass.). "That was fun," Furyk said. "This was pretty miserable."